Ha Giang’s food is not a list of dishes. It is a consequence of the terrain: where there is almost no land for wet rice, people live on maize, on whatever can be raised among rocks, and on ways of keeping food through the winter.
Men men — what stands in for rice
Men men is steamed maize flour, the daily food of the Hmong on the karst plateau. The maize is ground in a stone mill, sifted, moistened, then steamed twice in a wooden basket. The result is loose and slightly dry, eaten with soup or with thang co. For a visitor it is the hardest thing here to like and the most worth trying — because understanding men men is understanding why an entire culture up here turns around maize rather than rice.
Thang co
The most famous dish and the most misunderstood. Thang co is a large pot of broth made from horse meat and offal (or beef or buffalo, depending on the area), seasoned with black cardamom, doi seed, cinnamon, ginger and various leaves. The pot is kept boiling all through the market, and people ladle it into bowls and sit around it.
It is market food, not restaurant food. Eating thang co at a roadside place and eating it at the Meo Vac market on a Sunday morning are two entirely different things. If offal is not for you, say so beforehand — we will ask for a bowl with more meat in it.
Smoked meat from the kitchen rafters
Pork or buffalo rubbed with salt, mac khen pepper, ginger and chilli, then hung over the kitchen fire for a whole winter. The smoke both dries and preserves it. The finished meat is hard and intense; you tear it along the grain, or grill it again and beat it soft. This is how protein is kept through the months when nothing can be slaughtered, and it is the parcel many families press into a guest’s hands on leaving.
Au tau porridge
A speciality of Ha Giang town, made from the au tau tuber — a root that is poisonous if prepared wrongly. It must be soaked in rice-washing water and simmered for a very long time to break down the toxin, then cooked with glutinous rice and pork knuckle. The porridge is faintly bitter and usually eaten in the evening. To be clear: eat it only where they know what they are doing, and never attempt it yourself.
Buckwheat cakes, sour pho and things eaten on the road
- Buckwheat cake — buckwheat ground to flour, steamed, then grilled over charcoal. Light, faintly earthy, sold at stops around Dong Van.
- Sour pho — a dish influenced from across the border and common in the Northeast: rice noodles in a sweet-sour dressing with roast pork and peanuts, served cold. Very good on a hot midday.
- Five-coloured sticky rice — glutinous rice dyed with plant leaves, one leaf per colour. Festival food, not everyday food.
- Grilled river moss — moss lifted from the streams, cleaned meticulously, grilled in leaves. A Tay dish, and strictly seasonal.
Shan tuyet tea and maize spirit
On the slopes of Hoang Su Phi and Tay Con Linh there are ancient shan tuyet tea trees, centuries old and tall enough that pickers climb into them. The buds are covered in white down — hence the name, “snow tea”. The liquor is bright gold with a sweet finish, quite unlike lowland tea.
Maize spirit is distilled with leaf yeast, each village using its own formula. You will be offered it, repeatedly. Declining politely is entirely acceptable — and if you are riding, it is not merely politeness but our rule: no alcohol on a day you still have to ride.
Where we eat
We arrange meals in family homes and in places run by local people, rather than taking groups to restaurants built for coaches. If you are vegetarian, allergic or observant, tell us before departure — up here a change of meal is arranged a day ahead, not ordered from a menu.